There is a strange scent in the air this week. I’ve smelled it before, while the talking heads watched the Twin Towers burn on 9/11. It took them weeks to massage the facts to support their worldview and come to the conclusion that the Islamic-inspired murders were really our fault. Once they did that, however, the fear evaporated. It’s safe to hate America. Islamists can kill you.

This time the odor has nothing to do with the attempted murder of 110,000 Americans working in the World Trade Center, by Muslim jihadists. This odor has an elitist scent about it.

Big media have been working frantically to cover up the smell. Operation “birther” has been re-birthed, with numerous stories “discrediting” those poor, misguided souls who believe the president should actually be – at minimum – an American citizen by birth. Or he can’t be the president.

Even the Bloviator-in-Chief, Bill O’Reilly, has announced that if the state of Hawaii says they have the president’s birth certificate – well, that’s good enough for him.

I wonder what part of the state of Hawaii that would be? The beaches? The volcanoes? The evening wind whispering over the beaches and inlets as evening falls? Or perhaps the governor, who is sure the president’s birth certificate exists, but can’t seem to locate it.

O’Reilly, of course, has “seen” other missing documents, too. But we can’t “see” them. Only important people, political soap salesmen pumping up their ratings, can actually “see” the president’s documents.

The one who gave birth to the sudden spat of “birther” stories, so to speak, was Donald Trump. Trump has been smart enough to keep hammering away at the issue, and he has developed a following. This has shocked the political class. They have been astonished to learn that so many of us think our politicians routinely lie to us.

At first, Trump was amusing to those who have the most to lose. “Hey –” elbow in the ribs on the ride down the elevator from the private banker’s penthouse. “We reeled in a big one this time.”

“Yes, it’s great fun. Let him run with it; then we’ll jerk him up into the bait box.”

It was a good diversion: high gas prices are making voters angry. Obama’s newest war in the Middle East lacks a purpose. Dismantling Israel for the Palestinians is quarrelsome. And, of course, an economy on the precipice of the next leg down makes everyone uneasy. Diversion, please!

Trump rapidly moved from a source of amusement, and a useful diversion, to a source of concern. Next trip up the elevator to the private banker’s penthouse: “Er, this Trump fellow. What do you know about him?”

“Damned nuisance, I’d say. Bears watching.”

The elevator stops. The door opens on the “Too Big To Fail” banker’s penthouse, where the taxpayer bailout receipts paper the walls and protect the wealthy from financial ruin. Financial ruin, after all, is for the little people. You know – the ones who actually work for their money.

Oh, these aren’t the rich that you and I see. Not the entrepreneurs who struck it big by going public; not the Internet whiz-kids; not the small-business owners struggling to pay their employees; not even the sports stars or celebrities who work so hard to entertain us.

No, these are the rich who are too rich to see. They are too rich, in fact, to exist. And yet they do. The laws protect their wealth, and the taxpayers guarantee their investments. And a modest return is all they used to ask.

Second trip down the elevator. “You do understand – if this black-fella they elected doesn’t have an American birth certificate …”

“Well, they made it quite clear, didn’t they? The wars are illegal. Obamacare is dead and buried; it was never even law. Pesky middle class wants to live forever on their government handouts. …”

“And the debt we’ve purchased; treasuries, bailed out companies, all kinds of derivatives that nobody understands. … No legal taxpayer obligation to repay. We’re left holding the bag? It’s outrageous!”